Quotes by Denis Diderot

Distance is a great promoter of admiration!

Only passions great passions can elevate the soul to great things.

Isnt it better to have men be ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good?

Instinct guides the animal better than the man. In the animal it is pure in man it is led astray by his reason and intelligence.

The best doctor is the one you run for and cant find.

You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you cant deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.

When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a mans name live for thousands of years.

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.

Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.

The best doctor is the one you run to and cant find.

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.

Although a man may wear fine clothing, if he lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not hurt any living being, he is a holy man.

You have to make it happen.